People v. Murray

Judgment, Supreme Court, New York County (Jerome Marks, J., at suppression hearing; Alvin Schlesinger, J., at trial), rendered April 24, 1991, convicting defendant, after a jury trial, of two counts of criminal possession of stolen property in the fourth degree, and sentencing him, as a second felony offender, to two concurrent terms of 2 to 4 years, unanimously affirmed.

Defendant’s knowledge that the property was stolen could be inferred, beyond a reasonable doubt, as a result of his recent, exclusive, unexplained possession thereof, as the jury was properly instructed (People v Baskerville, 60 NY2d 374, 382-383). The prosecutor’s attempt to argue that defendant had probably stolen the property himself did not, in the circumstances, constitute an accusation of an "uncharged crime” but was fair argument (supra). In any event, the court gave a prompt curative instruction to disregard the argument. Concur—Sullivan, J. P., Carro, Wallach and Asch, JJ.